By Scott Gordon
As I shook off the museum fatigue that had settled upon body and soul while visiting the Museum of Science and Industry, one question about what I had just seen lingered: Where in Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous notebooks did they find a design for a giant rotating horse head placed in the middle of a planter?
The garish equine lawn ornament is the centerpiece of one section in the museum’s Leonardo Da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius exhibit, which attempts to bring to life many of Da Vinci’s stunning inventions. The horse stands guard over two Da Vincian catapults, built of wood and rope, that fire harmless red plastic balls back and forth. Like most of the devices on display here, they seem to have been whipped up on the cheap by the kids in remedial wood shop.
Even the exhibit’s title smacks of a perfunctory and rushed arrangement. “Man” and “Inventor”? Tell us something we don’t know. As for “Genius,” well, that word is officially overexposed, particularly for young readers of Pitchfork and Rolling Stone. How about: Da Vinci: Less Thrilling Than Dan Brown Would Have You Believe.
The exhibit’s goal is to create a sense of wonder, of course, but over and over again it reminds us that Da Vinci’s brilliance must have been as practical as it was fanciful and aesthetic. He clearly understood engineering needs so basic that they’re still important 500 years later. Maybe wonder isn’t the best hook here. While it incrementally increases our appreciation for the man, it’s a bit too much admiration for just one man. Sci and Industry might have taken a cue from The Art of Invention, a 1999 exhibit at the Science Museum in London. Da Vinci was the centerpiece of that exhibit, but the museum’s Web site soberly explains that he was far from alone for his time:
“Above all else, the Renaissance has traditionally been seen as an extraordinary flowering of arts and letters. The persistence of this view has long obscured the revival of technical activity that began in the late fourteenth century. This helps to explain the long-held belief that Leonardo was an utterly unique manifestation in his time – a brilliant scientist and engineer, as well as a peerless artist.
“A close examination of the process shows that its prime movers were, in most cases, the same ‘artists’ (‘artificers’ might be a more suitable term) who led the radical renewal of painting, sculpture and architecture during those decades. Indeed, it is all too often forgotten that the Renaissance artists were routinely involved in activities that we would now define as engineering. Moreover, their workplace – the celebrated ‘artist’s workshop’ of the Renaissance – had more in common with a bustling factory than with the modern cliche of an artist’s studio.”
Of course, this happened before the human pastime of letting twerps make fools of us caught up with Da Vinci’s memory. Instead of doing what it’s supposed to do – bring, say, art history to people who don’t specialize in it – this approach encourages people to believe that just maybe Da Vinci was singular enough to transmit information about ecclesiastical conspiracies.
The MSI exhibit begins with a short film that summarizes Da Vinci’s life and major works. There’s young Da Vinci in the obligatory 15th-century peasant getup! Adult Da Vinci in the obligatory poofy cape and hat! Dying Da Vinci in the obligatory thin deathbed shirt! An undulating baritoned narrator describes the enigmatic artists as “a man of unuuuusual sensitivity,” and rises to kid-show giddiness when he says: “One of his greatest obsessions is the mystery of flight!” I’m sitting near the left side of the wide screen, so it takes me a moment to notice The History Channel logo in the lower right-hand corner. Come to think of it, I’m guessing that about 80 percent of this exhibit consists of replicas of the Da Vinci exhibits that frequent viewers of The History Channel have come to know and love.
Then on to the fanciful gizmo-wonders of yesteryear! Or so they look, mixing arcane forms with bold innovation. Again, the primary material is wood, bringing a Middle Earth quaintness to even the most brilliantly practical of machines, including a paddle-boat and an early tank. All of these models would’ve come in handy during the filming of the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight” video. You can even operate some of them yourself, though I noticed a few parts coming unglued. If Da Vinci were to execute all of these ideas today, wouldn’t he know better than to use wood and Krazy Glue?
Of course, a few of these inventions are better left to the Orcs and Elves. There’s a ship with a huge sickle attached to it, meant to rip the sails of rival ships. A placard encourages visitors to question the invention, however innocuously: “Do you think a boat with a large blade on the front would float properly?” How about asking: “Would any enemy captain in his right mind sail anywhere near that fucking thing?” Same goes for the horse-drawn “reaping wagon,” apparently built to menace a battlefield like a runaway blender blade. Its operator would have a tough time nabbing people just-so, so the enemy would just need to stay clear. At least that’s my non-military-educated guess.
Moving past the death machines, you can shut yourself into a chamber of mirrors and see seemingly infinite reflections of yourself. I’ve experienced something like this in a department-store fitting room, leading me to wonder whether Da Vinci invented the obsequious tailor.
A placard near the end of the exhibit credits Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code with stirring up interest in our hero, and goes on to pathetically explain and entertain the novel’s conspiracy theories. Unfortunately, Dan Brown has bested the museum in the shocking discoveries department, even if his discoveries are dubious and poorly written. The publicity benefits circle back to Brown and the Da Vinci Codes parasites straining Barnes and Noble bargain tables worldwide. Apart from paperback copies of the novel, five Code-related books are on sale here. The selection also includes How To Think Like Da Vinci: Seven Steps To Genius Every Day and an accompanying workbook/notebook. In a way, the exhibit as a whole is the equivalent of an empty-headed middle-school teacher walking up to a student, snatching The Da Vinci Code out of his hands, and saying, “You know, young man, Da Vinci was quite interesting in his own right. Did you know that he invented the . . . ?
This exhibit doesn’t raise Da Vinci above this tawdry craze; it just integrates a slightly more complete version of him into it.
Posted on August 19, 2006